by Lee Kerr
I see Tyrell’s right hand rise, as the other one pulls me tight into his body, bracing me for the impact. I feel his man grabbing my hair from behind, pulling my head back and putting me at the best angle for his boss to completely silence me.
‘You know I’m right!’ I shout. ‘This island will be worthless if the deal is lost, so let me help you talk through the options.’
‘There are no options that involve you any longer,’ Tyrell says, his approaching fist clenched.
I close my eyes, ready for what will inevitably be only the start of my torment, as I wonder how much I will be able to endure in the selfish aim of creating a better future for myself and the girl I love. But the pain never comes as I hear a muffled sound from behind me. I open my eyes to see blood splattered across the wall and Tyrell’s body lying on the floor in front of me. The guard releases his hold on me and I feel myself falling, my knees crunching against the floor. As I struggle to hold myself upright with my hands still cuffed, the only consolation is Tyrell’s dead face, as I try to figure out what is happening.
I hear another muffled sound as my frantic mind tries to piece everything together. I force myself to turn around, but stop when I see the guard’s leg, motionless and with a stream of blood covering the floor around him.
I look up, hoping to see my saviour, but instead I’m met with the barrel of another gun, this time longer, held more steadily, and undoubtedly more deadly. The man staring down at me looks Chinese but he is not a member of the negotiating delegation. He’s taller, bigger and even calmer – clear of the part he has to play and the purpose he serves for this organisation.
‘Where is the memory stick?’ he asks, his eyes darting around the room and then back to me, the gun not moving.
‘He has it,’ I say, indicating Tyrell with my head.
He nods and continues to survey the room, before resting his gaze on me. He sees the handcuffs, seeming to genuinely survey my situation, before our eyes properly meet. The gun doesn’t move as we both examine each other. I soon realise how I am worthless compared to the knowledge contained on that one small piece of plastic.
‘The memory stick doesn’t have all the data,’ I say, looking at him with pleading eyes that somehow hope to appeal to his sense of logic, if not his guilt. ‘I got disturbed before the transfer had finished.’
He doesn’t say anything and so I close my eyes, waiting for my inevitable muffled end. I figure at this close range it will be all I hear, and the pain will be far less than what Tyrell would have inflicted upon me over many hours or even days. In my final few moments I’m almost thankful, until thoughts of Destiny come flooding into my mind. I think of the future that could have been and of the path that was laid out in front of me, if only for a brief moment. I put my mind to rest, pleased in some way that she is a problem and solution I will never have to trouble myself over again.
‘Who had the keys for your handcuffs?’ he asks, still seeming no closer to finishing me off. I notice that he is using the past tense, as if each of these men is now gone and no longer relevant.
I open my eyes, looking up to see the gun has gone. He’s looking around, clicking his fingers. I nod towards his second killing and this is all he needs to start searching their pockets. He eventually finds a bunch of keys and I’m quickly set free and put to work on gathering all the files.
‘Which are the main servers?’ he asks, dragging both bodies into the middle of the room, a trail of blood following them from where they originally fell.
I nod to the main computers and turn around to see that the door is closed and both of us are sealed in this tomb. I know that once I give him the complete set of files I will be expendable, and so the same question runs through my mind as before: how do I get out of this room in one piece? I watch as the status bar fills completely and a countdown to my demise appears on the screen, flashing proudly that the end is near.
He’s standing behind me now and it makes me think that he will be kind enough to finish me without any real knowledge of what is going to happen next. I close my eyes again – anything to stop me from fainting, although I can’t see that being a bad thing if it does happen.
‘I’m not going to kill you,’ he says. ‘Your passage to Beijing is still guaranteed. You and that girl you’re with, and your parents are being located as we speak. You made a deal and my employer will honour it.’
I open my eyes and look at him, a smile forming across my face. We will make it out of here and I will be with Destiny. We will build a new world, one that is meant for us to be together, and one that knows nothing of the past. I realise what a price I am willing to pay for the freedom of those I care most about; nothing else matters.
As soon as the memory stick is full I pull it out and quickly hand it over to my new protector. I feel happy to be a passenger on whatever gets us out of here: happy not to be making decisions anymore, not to be taking responsibility for so much.
‘You keep it,’ he says, without turning around. He’s busy attaching small boxes to the various systems. It doesn’t take a genius to work out what he’s doing: each of them starts to flash as soon as they are in position. I realise now the true meaning of my decision, in that Lawrence will be left with nothing but a dream and perhaps some residual determination. I’m taking it all and I’m leaving him with very little but rubble and regrets.
He leads me out of the room and down the hallway, tapping something into his phone as he charges forward. We step over bodies and pools of blood: people I knew, people I talked to – decent people who simply bought into the best vision that came along, wanting to do what they could to survive. The world changed and they tried to change with it. They left their homes, moved their lives and lost loved ones, all because of hope, and now they’re dead – crushed by someone bigger than them, all in the name of something even bigger. The higher it goes the more nameless each act becomes.
‘She’s already in the helicopter,’ he says, pulling me down a different corridor. We move quicker now, fighting against time and fate. The two guards at the end of the corridor don’t even see us coming before they fall by the hiss of that gun. When the paths of this man and me separate, I realise that our individual skills will give us very different chances of survival in the coming years. As he stalks his way around the corner I contemplate the very obvious fact that he has adapted far better to what will be required.
Two more hisses and a reload of the gun find us outside and on the roof, both of us running towards the waiting helicopter. He covers me, constantly turning around and then running to catch up, pushing me forward towards my liberation. I see Destiny in one of the passenger seats, waving hysterically at me with both hands, her giant shades covering all but her smile. The other Chinese delegates are on board too, calmly waiting to leave.
I reach the door, shouting that I have completed my mission, ever thankful when they pull me in. Destiny unbuckles her seatbelt and wraps her arms around me, frantically kissing my neck. She scrambles around the small seating area, hysterically screaming my name and getting in everyone’s way.
‘Get your seatbelts on, both of you,’ Jin says. He looks straight at me, his face void of any emotion. ‘You have all of the data?’
I throw myself into a spare seat as the force of the helicopter lifting up pushes me downwards. When I can finally reach into my pocket I pull out the memory stick and present it to my new employer, proud of my work and wanting validation as much as safety.
One of his men quickly grabs it from me and puts it into his laptop. It doesn’t take long before he is nodding to his superior, which I take as a good sign. I grab Destiny’s hand, partly to make sure that all this is real, but also to make them feel somehow guilty if they chose to throw us both out now.
‘You have proven yourself very useful, Mr. Henry. This information is what we lacked and with your knowledge of these schematics we can build our own sky cities, but they will be far bigger and much safer than what was planned for this islan
d. If he thinks we will ship our resources halfway across the world for such a small project then he really is as narrow-minded as he is arrogant.’
I nod, thinking of how Lawrence’s big vision has ended up so small. It makes me think of when I was a child. I always told my mum how I planned to build a robot and full of nothing but hope I would try to bring a few bits of plastic and an old battery to life – always dreaming, never quite succeeding.
‘I’m not a bad person,’ Jin says, looking at me and only me. ‘This is not the usual way we do business and in any normal time we would have signed a deal, come to a valid agreement or simply bought out Lawrence’s little business. But with none of those options available to us and time running out I’m sure you will agree that different measures are required.’
‘Do you want me to blow the servers,’ Jin’s hitman asks, a finger on his phone.
It’s at this moment that my phone rings, causing everyone to look at me. I look at it and see that Lawrence is calling. Without thinking properly, I tell my new boss that my old boss is on the phone, the option to speak to Lawrence clearly in his control, to which he nods.
I answer, immediately hearing Lawrence shouting at me. ‘Where are you?’ he says. ‘The Chinese have attacked us. Tyrell is dead and the server room has been compromised.’
I sit quietly for a moment, wondering what to say, not knowing if it is worth saying anything. ‘We’ve been attacked?’ I ask.
‘Yes!’ he shouts. ‘Where are you? We need to stop them before they get away. I’m heading to the roof. If those bastards think they will escape then I’ll blow them out of the sky. They cannot leave with the data they have taken.’
I quickly unbuckle my belt, looking out the windows until I can see both the complex and the new threat to us. ‘They are going to fire on us,’ I say to Jin.
‘Blow the servers,’ my new boss says without hesitation.
A return nod and a single reflex later, we all feel the vibrations of an explosion. No sooner has the hitman accomplished his task then he grabs a sniper rifle from the side of his seat and adopts a position near the door.
I finally put the phone back to my ear, waiting to savour the moment of our final goodbye. ‘You’re with them, aren’t you?’ Lawrence says.
‘Yes,’ I say, flatly, bluntly, as if it is such an obvious answer. ‘I have taken the schematics and the server room has just been blown up.’
‘You little bastard!’ Lawrence shouts. ‘You have betrayed me and taken what doesn’t belong to you. I knew you were just like your father and yet I still gave you a chance. I will destroy you for this. You and your parents will pay dearly for this, I can promise you that.’
‘Speaking of family, aren’t you going to ask me anything else?’
He’s quiet for a moment and I think that maybe it’s the noise of the chopper. We bank to the left so we can get a good look at the complex and I wait for him to say something. ‘Destiny,’ he says. ‘She’s with you.’
‘It took you a while to ask. I wonder if you really had thought of her at all?’
‘I’m not going to argue with you so just give her back to me.’
I look over at her, to the one we both want, but she’s busy looking out the window. I follow her line of her sight until I see him; he is standing in a suit with several of Tyrell’s men around him. They are heavily armed, with machine guns and a few rocket launchers, and he isn’t stopping them from taking aim. I start to feel vulnerable again, wondering if he would dare shoot us out of the sky now that he knows she is with us.
My fear quickly vanishes as I see those men start to fall, one by one, as each feel the systematic blows of a true killer. Lawrence suddenly realises what is happening and runs for cover, as the remaining men flee towards the stairs and away from the roof. When the shooting stops I see him stand up and put the phone back to his ear, as he straightens his thick glasses and looks up to the sky to find us.
I feel her soft skin as I take hold of her hand and look at her. I know that those eyes are the only place I will ever find comfort. ‘Can we go now?’ she says.
‘Lawrence, she doesn’t want you and she will always be with me from now on. I can’t change how we feel for each other but I want you to know that I will always take care of her.’
‘That’s not good enough,’ he says. ‘Return her to me; you know she’s all I have. Land now and we can discuss this and agree a fair exchange of knowledge.’
I laugh, feeling a huge wave of relief rush over me, knowing my life will never be the same again. ‘There’s really no need. They have all they came for and you have nothing left to trade, but I have to know something,’ I say and look down at him as the helicopter circles. ‘If you had a choice what would you pick – Destiny or the data?’
I watch him as he walks to the edge of the roof, looking up at us, his body turning as he follows the helicopter’s movements. ‘If you knew me properly, like you should, you would already know the answer to that.’
‘Humour me and I’ll see what I can do to help.’
I watch him shake his head, endlessly disappointed in me. He’s no longer my employer, my mentor or even my miserable uncle. ‘If the cause is just, the corporation must rule over the individual for the greater good.’
I watch him for a moment, wondering if he is truly brave or if he is just a cheap coward wrapped in an expensive mask. ‘If it’s not for her, then why do all this?’
‘You’ll never understand the answer to that question,’ he says, his head still shaking. ‘Just put Jin on the phone.’
I nod but say nothing, intending to do exactly as I’m told. ‘He’d like to speak to you,’ I say, holding the phone up to my new boss.
Jin shrugs his shoulders and then shouts in Chinese to the cockpit. The helicopter starts to move away as his personal assassin leans out the window again.
‘You taught me well, Lawrence. I believe you when you say that corporations and cockroaches may both endure, but right now I am picking what excites me, and what my heart is telling me is right. You should know that I will always love her, this one simple individual.’ I switch the phone off and sit back in my seat as I let Destiny take hold of me, my eyes closed and my mind only on this happy future that is finally unfolding.
And with a final hiss of the gun, I allow myself a smile.
That secret slice of life
Thursday 25th August – Los Angeles
I bang on the door again. ‘Come on, you son of a bitch, I know you’re in there,’ I say out loud, not caring if he hears me. I need to be careful, I know that. I can’t push my luck and I can’t fight my way in, either. The only choice I have is to get him to the door and somehow make him help me, no matter how much he doesn’t want to. I bang again, shouting out his name. I hit the door loudly, desperately. This place is my only lead, the only place that I stand any chance of finding her.
I’m still banging when he slowly opens the door. I see his disapproving face through the small gap, and then he frowns and sighs, telling me all I need to know. ‘It’s you again. This is starting to become a bit of an annoying habit.’
‘I’m sorry, I know I shouldn’t be here again, and I know I start with an apology each time I come knocking.’ I lean a cautious hand on his wall, near the doorframe, trying to force some sort of connection where none exists. ‘I really don’t know what else I can do.’
‘There would be no apology needed if you stopped bothering me.’ He starts to close the door, even quicker than he did during my visit yesterday. I expected this but I still don’t know if he’s shutting me out because he knows something or if he has simply had enough of my regular visits.
I don’t have the luxury of time and can’t afford to offend him, and so I place a foot in the doorway.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’ he asks, repeatedly pushing his door against my foot. His black eyes only give off anger, which is all directed at me; it’s like he’s the victim in all this, the one who is unfortunate enough to
have me banging his door each and every day. I look at him: his belly overhanging his jeans, his hairy arms having stolen much from his thinning head. He looks tired but no more than the rest of us; his sleeves are rolled up, and his face is coated in a thick layer of dust and sweat. He’s probably been packing all night, running around and preparing, just like everyone else. Perhaps he is the genuine model citizen of these times; doing what he can with what he has left, but I just can’t be sure.
‘Carlos, I’m sorry, I have more questions that I need answered. You’re the only one who can help me and I think you know that.’
He opens the door a little more so he can come closer to me. He steps on my foot and points a stubby finger at my face. ‘Look, I’m getting real sick of you coming around here. We’ve been through this a hundred times – I don’t know where this Lucy of yours is. The police have searched my place, you came in with them. They have asked me all the questions you could think of and they told you that they have more important things to be doing right now.’
I don’t want to hear this, not again, not when I’m out of options. I push him backwards, stepping into his place, the home of a man I don’t trust and yet cannot prove why. ‘Nothing is more important than Lucy!’
He doesn’t take long to gather himself together, his deep voice growling as he pushes his hands into me. I fall out of his house and onto the floor, with only my feet still in his doorway. He starts kicking them, trying to remove me completely. I rush to get up, knowing this is my last chance. Deep down I know he won’t open this door tomorrow, and the police will only tell me again that I need to drop this and move on with what is left of my life.
He bends down and grabs my ankles before I can properly get up. He takes hold of them and pushes me along the floor, my back scraping against the cement of his porch. ‘Please, Carlos!’ I shout, as I scramble to get up and find enough dignity to be able to ask for help that he clearly isn’t going to give.
‘I don’t want to hear it!’ he shouts back, as he throws my legs onto the floor. ‘You are one weird kid. Go and play your games with someone else.’